Old man winter isn’t allowing us to forget that he’s still boss and will remain in the driver’s seat for quite some time now.

Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday afternoon, which let everyone know that there are six weeks of winter still ahead.

NIU’s staff meteorologist, Gilbert Sebenste, urges students to be extra careful today, considering it will be wintry and blustery all day long.

“It’s going to be an absolutely nasty day,” Sebenste said. “There won’t be a lot of snow; however, there will be strong, gusty winds reaching 40 mph or maybe even higher. When that powdery snow gets stirred by those fierce winds, the feeling won’t be all that pleasant.”

Sebenste predicts that the snowfall should end by 9 a.m., with an accumulation of no more than 2 inches. Temperatures will drop into the mid teens for the remainder of the day, and the addition of strong winds will result in a wind-chill well below zero degrees. Today will be a classic bundle-up scenario, Sebenste said.

Students driving into DeKalb should try to avoid Annie Glidden Road north of town, and should use caution on Routes 38, 64 and 72.

“The strong winds blowing and drifting the powdery snow will lead to dangerous driving conditions,” Sebenste said. “I recommend taking I-88 for both the commute to and from Northern.”

On Monday, while many NIU students braved the foggy conditions on campus, students at Illinois State University in Bloomington had 50-degree weather, as well as severe thunderstorms.

“They were in the warm sector of the storm,” Sebenste said. “We get this mess with fog, which is literally just clouds on the ground produced by a lot of Gulf moisture in the air. The fog should have dissipated Monday night as soon as the cold air arrived,” Sebenste said.

Sebenste said we were lucky to miss the near blizzard conditions that parts of Wisconsin and Michigan had Monday afternoon.

The question that remains regards any possible warm-up for students who brave the trek to classes. According to Sebenste, there isn’t one in sight any time soon.

“We might hit the upper 20s next Saturday,” Sebenste said. “We are definitely in an icy grip of winter for the next 10 days.”

This type of weather is normal for this time of year, Sebenste said. We usually don’t see any type of increasing temperatures until about March, which means a whole month more of cold temps.